


49 Hours

by TrickyVicky3



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, Gen, Graphic Descriptions of Torture, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Panic Attack, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25714921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrickyVicky3/pseuds/TrickyVicky3
Summary: Not one second of the pain and suffering that Nicky and Joe experienced was worth it.OrBooker faces the consequences of his actions.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 39
Kudos: 368





	49 Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags, there’s descriptions of torture and suicide.
> 
> Other than that, enjoy!

-/

The package arrives seven weeks into Booker’s exile. 

He stumbles in one morning, not long after four am he thinks (though really it’s closer to five) and kicks it along the carpet in his stupor. 

He’s not drunk, not really. 

Two-hundred years of constant drinking dulls the buzz after a while, but he’s not quite sober enough to remember he didn’t pass on his address to anyone, and he’s never received post before. 

He passes out on the sofa, half-empty wine bottle clutched loosely in an alcohol-addled grasp, and thinks no more of it.

-/

That same day, around twelve hours later, he wakes. The sun is thankfully dipping out of sight, the room is bathed in dusk, dark oranges and purples dance across the walls.

He pulls himself up with a groan, pressing his palms into his eyes to quash the headache he can already feel forming. 

He stumbles sluggishly to the kitchen, pours himself a water and grabs for the packet of tablets on the table, only to realise it’s empty. 

He lets out a frustrated groan, and throws the packet against the wall, where it makes a pathetic “thud” and falls to the floor. 

The glass of water shakes in his hand as he downs it unsteadily and makes his way back to the main room.

Which is when he sees the package again.

Setting the empty glass on the coffee table he reaches for the package, standing quickly when the change in altitude makes his head spin. 

It’s small, no larger than Booker’s own hand, and his name is scrawled across the front in a neat handwriting font he recognises, with a dawning dread, as Copley’s. 

He sits down before he opens it, unsure if he has the stomach to deal with whatever’s inside the envelope. 

There’s a knife strapped underneath the coffee table that he slips free, and, with trembling fingers, uses it to cut along the edge of the package and open it.

He places the knife back, tips the contents of the envelope into his palm and throws the empty packet carelessly to the side. 

There are two objects in his palm now: a folded piece of paper, and a plain white thumb drive. He opens the paper first. Once again he is greeted with Copley’s handwriting.

49 hours.  
We did this.  
Watch it.

Booker shreds the note, then shreds the shreds just to be safe. He fires up his laptop, sticking the thumb drive into the port after five or six tries, his fingers fumbling as his leg bounces in tepid anticipation.

It takes an age to whirr into life. A period of time in which Booker can do nothing but stare at the screen, sweat gathering at his brow, torturing himself over what could possibly be on the drive.

When it finally kicks into action a small box appears on the screen, he clicks on it and it opens to a video file.

Booker swallows back his apprehension. A cold feeling of dread settles over him, prickling at the back of his neck.

He clicks the file. 

The screen flickers, and video footage fills the screen.

He recognises the room immediately and pauses the footage in the same breath. He’s going to need some more wine.

-/

Wine in hand he returns to the screen, running a hand through his hair - wet with sweat and other unknown substances he’d rather not think about.

He settles back against the sofa, rubbing his hand against his thigh, clenching it tightly into a fist before releasing a tense breath through his nose. He can’t put this off any longer.

He clicks play.

The video starts up, it’s a CCTV feed, with a perfect view of two beds - if you can call them that. 

Booker knows this room, he has no doubt it will haunt his nightmares for at least one-hundred years, if not more. 

For thirty seconds nothing happens, and then, from just out of sight of the camera, Booker hears the doors open, and two bodies are dragged in. 

He places the wine bottle on the table beside him and clenches his hands into fists again, silently attempting to calm his breathing which, without his permission, has started to speed up. 

He watches as several men strap the bodies to the hard steel beds, clamping arms, wrists, legs and ankles down, making sure there’s no room for movement. 

Nicky on the left, Joe on the right. 

Booker screws his eyes shut and breathes deeply, he hadn’t noticed at the time, too busy fighting to escape, to protect Andy; but there’s blood on Joe’s t-shirt.

Several splotches consistent with small stab wounds mar his chest. A quick glance at Nicky confirms that he has one too. Merrick’s work no doubt.

Nothing happens for the next few minutes, until a scientist walks in, Dr Kozak, Booker’s memory supplies. 

She gestures to the two men strapped to the bed and the armed men from earlier re-enter the room and start stripping them, cutting away their clothing until they are shirtless on the beds.

Kozak starts hooking them up to machines, attaching wires and cables, digging needles into their skin. She nods at the armed men again, and they exit, leaving her alone with Joe and Nicky.

She starts by carving at them, using a large-bladed knife to cut away at Joe’s chest, she pulls away a piece of skin, and tucks it into a jar, labelling it and placing it on a shelf, even as Joe’s skin knits itself back together next to her.

Beside Joe, Nicky begins to stir, Booker’s heart plummets, as Nicky wakes fully, eyes immediately going to Joe. 

“Leave him alone” 

He speaks to the Doctor in English, pulling at his restraints. His voice comes out tinny through his laptop’s speakers and Booker sits up, thumbing at the volume speaker until he can hear Nicky’s breathing, heavy and loud in the quiet of the room.

“You want DNA? Samples? You take them from me” Nicky continues.

Dr Kozak smiles at him. It’s not a friendly smile. Booker has to hold back a gasp when she takes out another, smaller knife. 

“No” 

She takes the knife to Joe’s hand, and in the blink of an eye, she takes a finger. 

Nicky’s scream of anguish fills the room, Booker has to bring his hand to his mouth to force back the bile that rises in him, choking him.

He swallows as he watches Nicky strain against the bonds, cutting his wrists and ankles raw and bloody only for them to heal again in a matter of minutes.

“Fascinating”

Dr Kozak smiles wickedly as she deposits the finger in a container, and places it on the side. Booker watches with sick fascination as it grows back, his stomach churning. 

Dr Kozak runs her hands through Joe’s hair, snipping off a lock near the back. 

“Don’t worry Mr Smith”

She grins evilly,

“We will get to you soon enough”.

Booker throws up three times before the second hour is over. 

-/

A little over four hours into the footage and Booker has downed his first full bottle of wine, his hand is raw and bloody where he’s been biting it to stifle his sobs.

Nicky has fallen unconscious not long after Dr Kozak had taken a drill to his forehead, and Joe hadn’t woken up for the whole ordeal. 

He has the video paused, his eyes unfocused in the darkness of the room. Tear tracks stain his face but he knows he has to watch this. It’s his responsibility. 

Bringing a new bottle to his lips he presses play again, fingernails pick at the label on the bottle, he doesn’t even notice as it sheds onto him. 

Joe and Nicky are still now, both out cold. They are surrounded by tubs, tubes and containers, all holding parts of them that they did not consent to be taken. 

Petri dishes of DNA, test tubes of saliva and blood, and other bodily fluids Booker doesn’t want to think too much about. 

Dr Kozak had been gone for around fifteen minutes. Minutes in which Booker stares at the screen, willing Joe and Nicky to wake, to free themselves and run. Even though he knows it doesn’t happen.

When she re-enters the room the Doctor, if you can even call her that, is holding a long, thin needle, and for a moment Booker is almost grateful Joe and Nicky are unconscious. He doesn’t know if he could handle another of Nicky’s anguished screams. 

But his heart drops when she presses the needle against Nicky’s side, and his eyes flutter open. Damn him. Why can’t he just stay asleep.

He goes from unconscious to wide awake in a matter of seconds, eyes scanning the room for Joe, he bypasses Kozak, even as she stabs him, and he looks to the side, his body relaxing almost immediately when he lays eyes on him.

“Look at me please Mr Smith” 

Nicky’s breathing is even now, calm and collected, despite the pressure of the needle, which at this point must be between his ribs. 

“That is not my name”

Dr Kozak pulls the blade out, completely ignoring Nicky even as he pulls in a breath between his teeth. 

“Hmm remarkable” she murmurs, and Booker feels a spark of rage, as he remembers they did not kill this lady. He will, he decides, for Joe and Nicky he will kill her slow and- 

His thoughts jumble to a halt.

She could only hurt them this way, because he and Copley allowed it. Booker watches her torture Nicky slowly, a sick fascination on her face, and knows it is because he chose it. 

Copley contacted him and he knew, deep down he really did know, that Merrick’s investigation wouldn’t be sane. He thought about it for months, imagined the pain and the fear they would all go through and he deemed it worthy.

Because he just wanted it all to end. 

He wanted to die.

But this, he knows vehemently, this was not worth it. Not one second of the pain and suffering that Nicky and Joe experienced was worth it. 

He pauses the video and goes into the kitchen. 

He kills himself twice before he decides he is ready to watch more.

-/ 

“You will not be able to give him what he wants” 

Nicky’s voice cuts through Booker’s haze of self-loathing. He watches, eyes glassy, as Nicky confronts the Doctor, his chest heaving, but his face calm. 

The image quality isn’t good enough but Booker knows that if he could see them, Nicky’s eyes would be cold and stormy, a rage burning in them.

“You think I go too far? That I am unethical?”

As she speaks, Doctor Kozak drops a piece of Nicky’s tissue into a medical tube. Nicky’s eyes follow its descent.

“I would say immoral”

The sentence is damning, Booker knows intently how the Doctor must be feeling under his piercing gaze. In two-hundred years Booker has only had Nicky’s cold, hard fury directed at him once before; it’s something he never wants to feel again.

The sweat prickling at the back of his neck, his constant awareness of where Nicky was in every room, the deep burning of eyes on his skin. Nicky doesn’t like to kill, nor does Joe, but for each other they are capable of great things - and terrible things.

“I believe this can change the world” 

Dr Kozak says, looking down at Nicky. Booker scoffs, how had that been him. How could he have been so naive. 

“A fine justification. I’ve heard it so many times before”

Nicky sounds resigned. Booker digs his fingernails into his jeans, barely feeling the pressure on his legs beneath them as the guilt threatens to swallow him whole.

Joe and Nicky are seven-hundred years older than him, he can’t believe he’s never considered that this might have happened before. 

That someone might have worked out who they are - what they are, and tried to use them for their personal gain.

On screen the Doctor doesn’t reply to Nicky. She smiles, once, and walks away. Booker is deeply relieved for the reprieve, if not for himself, then for Nicky and Joe

He worries his bottom lip, hissing as he cuts through the fragile skin with his teeth, licking away the blood. On the screen he can see Joe start to move, shuddering slowly into full awareness. 

Like Nicky, as soon as his eyes are open he looks for his other half, his body tense and worried until he lays eyes on him. 

Booker had resented that once, the way their eyes never leave each other, how they can be in the middle of a war zone and yet know where the other is at all times. 

He thought he knew love. The things he felt for his wife, his children. But watching Joe and Nicky over the years has taught him that he truly knows nothing. 

His heart clenches painfully in his chest as he watches them watch each other.

“As much as I like watching you sleep, I’m glad you’re awake”.

Nicky’s voice is almost overwhelming with fondness, Booker’s heart aches with longing, for what, he’s not sure.

Joe pouts, “Bed head?”.

Nicky snorts, smiling for the first time in over six hours and Booker - Booker needs to breathe - 

he can’t breathe - 

he can’t breathe - 

he can’t -

He pushes the laptop away violently, not caring as it crashes to the floor, freezing on the image of Joe and Nicky looking into each other’s eyes, twin smiles on their faces. 

He rushes blindly to the window, throwing it open carelessly and inhaling so deeply his lungs complain. It’s pitch black outside, colder now too as midnight approaches. 

He doesn’t even try to blink away the tears when they come this time, sliding down the windowsill until he’s sat on the floor, back to the wall.

He puts his head in his hands, drawing his knees up to his chest trying to make himself as small as possible. 

Sobs wrack his body, his lungs burn as he hyperventilates but he doesn’t want it to stop - doesn’t deserve for it to stop. 

He sits slumped on the floor for what feels like hours, eventually the tears subside, and he feels wrung out, empty and exhausted. And he’s only watched six hours; he still has forty-three left.

He reaches out to the side blindly, feeling by sense memory until he finds a wine bottle that isn’t empty.

It’s going to be a long couple of days. 

-/

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this! Leave some love 😘😘😘 if you want 🥺
> 
> A PSA: I don’t hate Booker I just want him to suffer a bit 🙈😂 writing this fic has alleviated the majority of my angry feelings towards him.


End file.
